In his second appearance in Los Angeles Superior Court this week, Donald Sterling sat on the stand Wednesday and swore to sue the NBA until he died, questioned the league’s finances, and accused its officials of lying.

But what grabbed attention was what he told his wife when testimony ended.

After Shelly Sterling stepped down from the stand for the day, she walked toward Donald, smiling slightly.

“Get away from me, you pig,” he spat out.

Taken aback, Shelly walked to the other side of the courtroom and Donald added, “Shelly, how could you lie?”

That came after Donald Sterling spent much of his nearly 50 minutes on the stand Wednesday testifying how beautiful his wife was, how much he loved her, and how much he trusted her — similar to how he had described her Tuesday in the trial that could determine ownership of the Los Angeles Clippers.

Judge Michael Levanas said the trial will likely last past July 15, when the NBA Board of Governors is scheduled to vote on the $2 billion sale of the Clippers to former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. His deal with Shelly Sterling to buy the team also expires on that day.

“We’re going to need to regroup on that and see where we go from here,” Adam Streisand, Ballmer’s attorney, said outside the courthouse. He added that he was still confident that the sale would go eventually go through, though his client does have the option to pull out.

The trial is to determine Shelly Sterling’s right to sell the team, since she maintains her husband is not mentally competent to oversee the franchise. The Clippers’ future has hung in the balance since anti-black comments by Donald Sterling became public, and the NBA fined him $2.5 million, banished him from the NBA and moved to strip him of ownership.

At one point, Blecher told him, “I just want a yes or no and not a speech.” Later, when Sterling accused the NBA of lying, Blecher said, “I didn’t ask a question.”

Sterling, 80, also doubled down on his battle with the NBA and his intent to keep the Clippers.

“I will never, ever, ever sell this team,” he said. “Until I die, I will be suing the NBA to make them pay for the terrible violations of antitrust they have imposed on me and my family.”

He questioned the NBA’s finances and made a vague reference to former commissioner David Stern having $150 million stashed away, though it wasn’t clear if he meant personally or in NBA accounts, or whether he was making an accusation of impropriety.

He called the NBA a “terrible institution” that lied when it said Shelly Sterling could keep 20 to 25 percent of the Clippers after the sale.

According to Donald Sterling, Shelly only negotiated a sale of the Clippers because she was terrified and couldn’t sleep at night.

He said he tried to assuage her fears, telling her, “They are no worse than any other corporation in America. Only worse.” He said the league and her lawyers had “mesmerized her totally.”

Claiming his wife’s attorneys could not be trusted, he said, “We all know they’ve served time. We all know they’ve been in the place we don’t want to talk about.” Shelly’s attorney, Pierce O’Donnell, once spent two months in prison for illegally contributing to former Sen. John Edwards’ 2004 presidential campaign.

Asked if he had ever considered himself retired, Donald Sterling said no. He insisted that he was responsible for over 200 properties he owned in Los Angeles, Las Vegas and San Diego; negotiated contracts for coaches; and had never been late on any payments of any kind. (In 2011, former Clippers coach Mike Dunleavy won $13 million in arbitration after Sterling refused to pay the remainder of his contract.)

Donald also said that although Shelly Sterling is a member of the Sterling Family Trust, she “has no rights whatsoever. She may be the trustee, but she has no stock. She’s not a director.”

“My wife in her entire life has never read the trust,” Sterling said. “She wouldn’t know what’s in the trust. The trust is complicated. I know what’s in the trust.”

After Donald finished his testimony, Shelly took the stand for a little over 20 minutes of what Fields called a “refreshing glimpse.”

She testified that it was Donald’s CNN interview with Anderson Cooper in early May that prompted her to contact Dr. Meril Platzer, a neurologist recommended by her friend. Platzer also testified on Wednesday, cross-examined mostly on whether or not she followed doctor-patient confidentiality laws.

Shelly Sterling called Donald’s interview “out of context and out of reality,” pointing out that he wasn’t always answering Cooper’s questions, and that he launched into a bizarre attack of Magic Johnson.

“I couldn’t believe it, and I started crying,” she said. “I felt so bad. I couldn’t believe that was him.”

Shelly also said that over the last two or three years, Donald has become increasingly forgetful, slurs his words, gets agitated often, and gets mad for no particular reason.

“He’s just not the same person he used to be,” she said.

Donald’s attorneys have reserved the right to call him back to the stand. The trial will continue today at 1:30 p.m.

Jack Wang covers the Chargers, the latest NFL team to relocate to Los Angeles. He previously covered the Rams, and also spent four years on the UCLA beat, a strange period in which the Bruins' football program often outpaced their basketball team. He is a proud graduate of UC Berkeley, where he spent most of his time in The Daily Californian offices in Eshleman Hall — a building that did not become earthquake-safe until after his time on campus.

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